Help
Insomnia
| Published: 8th April 2008 22:06 |
A slightly unusual technique for dealing with insomnia.
If you're a sufferer, friends & family will always be able to offer suggestions they've tried before or solutions they've heard about from other people or read in books - let's face it, there's no single solution that works for everyone, just like there's no single, miracle technique to stop smoking.
But as a therapist, we're taught to help you find the answers from within yourself.
So let me ask you 'what do you gain from not sleeping?'
The first response to that question is usually 'What do you mean? What do I get from it?'
So I'd respond 'What do you gain from not being able to sleep? What does it give you?'
Now once you start focussing on the positives, just some possible answers are:
a) Well I do get some good business ideas when I can't sleep
b) It does give me time to review the day to see if there's anything I've forgotten to do
c) I sometimes find the solution to a problem by having all that time to consider options
... and a very honest and enlightening one some people face is:
d) It gets me lots of sympathy from friends & fellow sufferers, we have a common problem to talk about, we help each other by trying out different remedies
Once you've exhausted your list of what insomnia does for you, then you can begin to 'negotiate'.
So for options a-c negotiate with yourself. If I make more effort to find time to come up with those business ideas or do my daily checklist or make a pros and cons list during the day - then I'll be able to rest easier at night.
For option d, once you've come to this realisation, the very first thing to do is not beat yourself up about it. In fact, congratulate yourself for being so honest, most people aren't that brave. After all it's nice to have a common subject to share with other people. It feels good to have people sympathise with you and want to help you. And just the way celebrities argue bad publicity is still publicity, getting attention because of something negative is still attention...but now you know what it is, you have the power to change it...or decide its no longer useful to you and discard it...or realise you have something positive to share with your friends instead of something negative...
I hope this sets you thinking...but hopefully not in the dead of night!!!
Many thanks to Sharon Lee from Focus on Life for this feature.
Report this article as inappropriate
Comments
You need to log in before you can do that! It's only a quick registration process to join the AMA network and completely free.
Loading...
Help